The world has been moving towards its next stage of civilization with continuous development and inventions. But the research carried on in the recent past has shown that the world has been suffering from acute pollution and the pollution levels are also very high in certain places. To combat this growing pollution, United Nations has issued the principles of sustainable development and have established many treaties through which these environmental issues need to be resolved.
In recent days, most of the eminent business organizations are also getting familiar with the term sustainable development and they are planning in such a way so that they can fulfill these SDGs put forward by the Rio Earth Summit. This is where the CSR report got its emergence and it has become mandatory for many companies nowadays.
Why Produce a CSR Report and How should it be Presented?
A CSR report (corporate social responsibility report), is a recurring report that businesses publish on their corporate social responsibility efforts and outcomes. Hence, it is a document that compiles and disseminates all the data on the steps taken by businesses to support sustainable development principles.
CSR reporting is specially made for the stakeholders that include partners, investors, shareholders, customers, and so on. The sole aim of CSR reporting is to mobilize the planning of the company to achieve sustainable development and made it transparent to the aforementioned stakeholders. This will provide the company to establish the status of an environmentally conscious organization and will increase its reputation as a whole all over the world. As a consequence, they might get even better visibility as well as gain more profit in due course.
From recent research, it has become evident that the climate is changing abruptly and global warming has become a major issue that our world needs to deal with immediately. Keeping this in view, companies are publishing CSR reporting through valid legislation and are presenting this in front of the stakeholders. According to some experts, the best way one could establish environmental consciousness through CSR reporting is by taking out of the Carbon Assessment of their company.
Some of the important benefits that CSR reporting supplies to its clients are:
Transparency: CSR reporting has proved to impart its efforts made for sustainable development and making the company’s employees well aware of these efforts. Through this, a company can incorporate a sense of transparency among its stakeholders and this as a result will increase the trust between them. In due course, a company can expect a strong bond between them and its stakeholders.
Valuable Asset: It is up to the company to make the results of CSR reporting outstanding and commendable. And if the company becomes successful in doing so, CSR reporting might prove to be the best public relations and marketing asset.
Greenwashing prevention: Greenwashing which is especially regarded as an advertisement for a company’s products and services to be environmentally friendly can be prevented successfully through CSR reporting. As a consequence, the company will not have to bear additional expenses needed for greenwashing. Since the reports of CSR are made available to the public they will get a clear idea about the company’s efforts and intentions toward sustainable development.
Generating innovative ideas: If a company needs to develop its CSR report, at first it needs to do something effective to fulfill the SDGs. So while planning these ideas, the company will give rise to energy efficiency programs that will help them to save enough expenses. Thus it will progress and development will be made in the R&D sectors. As a whole, it can be said that it will not only improve its viability and goals towards maintaining sustainable development but it will also provide employment to many eligible research scholars and so on.
Benchmarking the progress: Some eminent companies all around the world have been developing their CSR report almost yearly. As a result, they have become successful in benchmarking their progress and they have a record of how they have grown all these years. This provides a better insight into the efforts made by these companies and how they have tackled issues that have come their way.
Overall, it can be concluded that CSR reporting has proved to be beneficial for companies to increase their sales and popularity in the global market. However, certain steps need to be followed by the companies to present the results of CSR reports to the stakeholders.
